Motorhome stories

[Ken]

I am sure everyone has some interesting tales to tell about some of their first motorhome experiences. One of mine goes back to the early eighties. I had a 1973 D21 Winnie with a 318. We were on our way to the Saskatchewan prairies for a school reunion. We left the kids with our neighbour and got away Fri. night right after work. We stopped to see an old friend a couple hours down the road. Our intention was not to stay over as we were on a tight time frame. We had planned on a visit, camp in his yard and carry on early the next morning. However there happened a big celebration going on in that town and to make a long story short; there was a beer garden. Needless to say, we did not get as early a start as we had planned the next morning and my wife was not happy. I drove for a few hours but reilized I had not gotten enough sleep. My wife had only driven the motorhome a little bit before and was scared of it but it was too risky for me to keep driving, We did not want to be late for the reunion so I convinced her to drive while I laid down  and got a little more sleep.( This was in the days when no-one was concerned about seat belts!!). We were out of the mountains and on prairie roads so told her to take it easy until she got used to it. I laid down on the rear bed and nervously tried to go to sleep. After a bit, I began to relax as she seemed to be handling it well. I drifted off to sleep. I awoke a few hours later and noticed the exhaust was purring pretty good. I had just put on a new dual exhaust system so it had a nice drone to it and it was droning pretty good. The door curtain was pulled so I could not see ahead. I knew we were motoring pretty good and this was confirmed when I lifted the rear curtain and looked out the rear window. We had one of those long whip CB antennas with a ball on the end that was mounted to the back bumper and extended to well above the motorhome and whipped in the breeze. This antenna was not whipping at all but was extended straight out behind the unit. I quickly made my way to the front and there was my wife. All smiles, pedal right to the metal and having the time of her life!! We got to the reunion on time.

[Ken]

  Again back in the eighties with that same 1973 Winnie but a couple years later we were coming back from a visit on the prairies, We had our 4 children with us aged 5 to 14. The back bed was flipped up into a couch and they were all seated there with their seat belts on. It had been a long day and they were tired and cranky and were constantly needling each other. My wife was trying to referee from the front passenger seat and threatening them to no avail. Finally she had enough and back she went to restore order. On her way she spotted a toy baseball bat. This was actually an air filled heavy duty balloon that could not hurt a fly but she picked that as her weapon to get her point across.
As she was giving each of them a harmless swat with this bat, she heard a horn blow. She looked up and saw a station wagon with several people in it following us. She saw (and I could see in mirrors) that they were clapping their hands in applause. The motorhome had a wide rear window and they could see these kids jumping around and squabbling with each other. They had been following us for a ways and were probably making bets on when someone was going to do something. When suddenly, to their delight, this woman appears and starts to wail on these kids. They started blowing the horn and clapping. My wife slunk back to the front in embarassment!!! We met up with those people at a service station down the road and all had a good laugh. The kids thought it was priceless! If that had happened today, we probably would have been met down the road with a roadblock, SWAT team, child services and who knows what else!!!!!
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